A Great and Terrible Beauty
by ongreenergrasses
Summary: People ask you why. Maybe you were always like this. Or maybe something happened to make you so.   Moriarty POV
1. Chapter 1

**This was written before the first of January, so I had really no idea what was going to happen in the end to Moriarty, Sherlock, John, etc. As such, this is a very large AU – and this is the best bit – written from Moriarty's POV.  
>I know what you're thinking. IT'S NOT THAT BAD. I'm not too good at whumping characters. But if you are already cringing and crying and trying not to puke all over your laptop, I suggest you close this window now. For those who like some angst, some nastiness, and some corruption of the mind, please stay and join me for tea :)<br>Written to "Remain Nameless" by Florence + The Machine. I harbor an unconditional love for ALL Florence's work, but this song? My God. She's angry and heartbroken and…well, this song just sort of gave me a direct tunnel into the mind of a psychopath. An overpowering sense of terrible beauty, that's this song.  
>Disclaimer: N'awww.<br>Warnings: Okay, people. I just want to tell you that I love you. Because this is going to get nasty. We've got violence, we've got drugs, we've got allusions to self-harm and suicide and – hell, you're reading a fic from MORIARTY'S POV. That is written in the second person, nonetheless.**

They laughed.

Everybody laughed.

You knew one day that you would be able to stop them. Knew it and you told them so.

They laughed anyway.

And you did stop them laughing.

…

When you caught them, they asked you to stop. They begged. Pleaded. Groveled, cried. Did everything they could to try and make you listen. Try to make you stop. They'd do whatever you wanted, anything, everything you told them. Just stop.

And then it was your turn to laugh.

You never took words for proof. Words were pointless, vibrations of atoms in the air, so easily lost and forgotten. You did not work with words. You did your transactions in deeds and nothing less.

It was all very well. They could say they'd massacre sixteen thousand children for you. You wouldn't believe it until you watched.

…

Nobody was ever enough. They all failed you in the end. Nobody was strong enough, clever enough, to work with you in the way you needed.

People are your pawns. Figures, chess pieces in the game of life. When they fail you, you crack them. Slowly.

You want them to learn, you see. You want them to know, to realize where they went wrong. You want to help them, really you do.

But people are just so fragile.

Crack after crack crumbles the clay and eventually it breaks down. It always does. Your people, your field workers, they all break, one by one.

And you have no place in the game for broken toys, so you throw them away.

…

It gets so dull, working all on your own. You want someone to help you, someone to make things more interesting. You want a playmate, a partner, someone who can understand.

Somewhere there must be someone like you.

You want someone to understand. Someone who sees, no, not who sees, someone who KNOWS, what it is like inside you.

You want to tell them why you're this way. You want to tell them what made you, what broke you.

You want to tell them what happened.

…

You were brilliant. Special, Mum always said. "Someday, when you are older, everyone will know your name," she said. She promised you so many things. Things that didn't happen, things that never could happen.

You didn't mean to do it.

But you were special.

Even as you picked up the knife and drove it into her throat, even as you watched her die there on the floor in front of you, you knew you were special. Nobody else ever did things like that.

Nobody else ever stabbed their mother and felt nothing.

…

You thought, later on, that there must be somebody that knew what it was like. Everyone had their groups, everyone had their little lunch tables and people they called 'friends'. Everyone but you.

You were the freak, the outcast, the black mark on the school. Nobody knew exactly what you had done, or how, but you scared them anyway. Scared them all.

All except for Julia.

…

Julia saw what no one else did.

…

You and Julia sat together. Read together. Talked about anything and everything together. Did some coke, some weed, some crystal together. Did it all together.

You wondered if this was it. You wondered if Julia could be your partner, if she was the one you had waited for, if she was somebody you could finally work with. She was special, after all. She was brilliant. She was always trying to be stronger.

…

She cut too deep.

…

You found her note.

You cried at her funeral.

You wished she had told you.

You were angry.

You had wanted to go, too.

…

In the note she said that her feelings, her pain, made her stronger. You needed to be stronger. You weren't good enough yet, you couldn't do everything you needed to be able to do. So you cut, too.

You cut deeper and deeper, making scratches into scars, trying desperately to just feel. You wanted to be stronger. You needed to be stronger.

They caught you. Locked you up. Labeled you and put you in a cage.

You knew then that she was wrong.

You were numb.

You were brilliant.

You were good enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**And now, I present to you…part two!  
>I must thank the aptly named unintentionalgenius. I'm technically her beta, but on this one, I had a huge self-confidence issue and was never going to post; she sent me back comments and basically told me to get my arse in gear. Thanks, lovey!<br>Written to – I can't remember WHAT, exactly. I think I was waiting for 'The Last Enemy' to load on YouTube, which would mean nothing. Except for maybe some static.  
>Disclaimer: Okay, I know that John is FINE (physically). I know that Sherlock didn't really kill himself. And I know Moriarty blew his brains out with a pistol on top of St. Bart's. All of which were, by the way, not my decisions. But tough. This is an AU. I can do whatever I want.<br>Warnings: Disturbing. Yes, this is disturbing. There are a couple deaths…*runs to hide under table***

After Julia, you kept going. You tried to forget her. She wasn't important. She had been a distraction. You told yourself over and over that she had never existed.

Time wore on and on and after a while, even you started to believe your lies. You started to believe that she hadn't been real, that she had just been your faults, disguised and unleashed upon the world. She had been trying to cripple you, trying to make you weak.

You are strong. You need to be strong. Stronger is better. You cannot be just human. You are more. You are special.

You thought HE understood that, too.

…

You found out about him from one of your agents. It was one of your arranged crimes, a little one but important nonetheless. He got in the way.

Nobody ever gets in your way.

…

This might be it for real this time, you thought. This was who you could work with. If he was clever enough to get in your way, he was clever enough to be your partner.

He wasn't Julia. He wasn't weak. He knew that feelings did nothing for anybody. He knew that to function, one needed data. Cold, solid data, based on what was actually observed, not what was perceived.

You needed him.

You sent out feelers. Moles. You needed to know everything about this man called Sherlock Holmes.

You were almost ready to approach him. To recruit him.

And that was when his faults manifested.

…

He was yours.

And then that man called John had the nerve to show up in his life.

…

You played a game with him. Tried to draw his attention away from his precious John and back to you. It almost worked.

But when John chastised him, he repented. When John called, he came.

You could not have that.

…

John was his pet. John was corrupting him. John was making that strong man into someone so weak and so human.

People keep pets.

You do not.

People feel affection for their pets.

You don't.

…

You needed a strong and clever version of him. To achieve that would be relatively simple. All you had to do was dispose of his pet.

That was easier said than done.

…

But you did. You ruined that army doctor.

He was stronger than most. That was due to the soldier, you thought. The soldier that was still living inside him.

He broke, in the end. He didn't just crack. He shattered.

Spectacularly.

You wished that it could have taken longer for him to die. It was really so brief. You wished that he could have had time to repent for his mistakes. To realize that nobody gets in your way. Ever.

…

Sherlock came at last. Found the body, found the blood, found you standing over the now useless and broken toy.

You expected him to be happy. To thank you for removing his weakness, cutting it out at the roots.

You didn't expect him to do this.

…

You don't cry.

You never cried.

You screamed and raged if something went wrong. People, animals, furniture, dishes, they all knew when something went wrong. They felt it. They knew that you were unhappy without you even having to say anything.

But you never cried.

…

So why was he crying?

…

He was meant to be your partner. He was so clever.

He wasn't meant to do this.

He wasn't meant to sit on the floor, holding his friend's body, rocking him and crying and crying.

And that was when you realized that John Watson wasn't a friend. He was never a friend. Nor a pet.

He was something more.

…

You got angry.

…

People, ordinary people, were not allowed to touch you. They were not allowed to touch your partner. You were both untouchable.

You can't remember exactly what happened. It was fast, and it was furious, and it was so unexpected.

You do know that he fought you when you ripped him off the body and took it away. He fought so well. He was like an animal, wild from rage and grief. That was how you wanted him. A broken man, angry at all the world.

You thought that you must have done something right.

"GIVE HIM BACK!" he had screamed. "Give him back to me!"

You supposed that he regretted not getting a chance to help you. You thought he wanted to have a turn, to help rid himself of that horrible cancer that latches onto a man and makes him feel. You did give John's body back to him, just for a few minutes.

You didn't know what he was doing.

…

You didn't realize until it was too late.

…

You should have seen that bulge in John's jacket pocket. You should have known he had that gun.

You were just too interested in playing with him to notice petty things like that.

…

Later, you wondered why John hadn't fired. He could have. You truly had no idea that the gun existed. John could have killed you, killed himself if the pain had become too much. He could have done so much and yet he didn't.

It was obvious why, in the end.

John believed in that detective. He really believed that Sherlock would come.

And he did. He was just a few minutes too late.

…

There was one bullet in that gun. Sherlock could have shot you.

But instead he shot himself. Right through the heart. His eyes said, _This is what you have done to me. _

…

You called in your men to take away the bodies. Both bloody and bruised, both agonized and ruined. You didn't want to be reminded of your failure.

…

Eventually, they told you that they'd thrown them in the rubbish bin. That's what those two were, really. Rubbish. Trash. They had no purpose in all reality.

So you started again. Put them out of your mind. Began looking for someone new.

You still haven't found anybody.

But you will. You know that.

Because the strongest men, the very strongest, don't let John Watson into their life. They're smarter than that.


End file.
